Chapter 8 - THE PRICE
Marcus nearly crushed his phone.
“My son left basketball practice at eight.”
“Do the police know?” Evelyn asked.
“They know now.”
Preston called again before Marcus finished speaking with the detective.
This time Evelyn put him on speaker.
“You have the ledger,” Preston said. “I want it, the drive, and Rachel Bennett’s boy.”
Lucas flinched.
Evelyn’s voice sharpened. “You’re not getting a child.”
“Then Marcus loses his.”
Marcus stepped toward the phone. “If you touch him—”
“Threats are comforting, aren’t they?” Preston said. “They make powerless men feel busy.”
The line clicked dead.
Lucas stared at the carpet.
“I’ll go.”
“No,” Evelyn and Marcus said together.
“If he wants me, maybe—”
“No,” Marcus repeated. “You are not a bargaining chip.”
Lucas’s eyes filled. “Your kid didn’t do anything.”
“Neither did you.”
Evelyn crouched so they were eye level.
“Lucas, listen carefully. Adults caused this. Adults fix it. You do not pay for our mistakes.”
He swallowed and nodded.
Police traced the photo metadata to an abandoned printing warehouse on the river, but the location was likely a trap.
Evelyn studied the picture again.
Behind Marcus Jr. was a wall painted green with a narrow stripe of old gold lettering.
Lucas leaned in.
“I know that wall.”
Marcus turned. “How?”
“My mom used to clean offices at night after she got fired. I went with her sometimes.” Lucas pointed. “That’s not a warehouse. It’s the old Vale Theater.”
Preston’s grandfather had owned the theater before it closed twelve years earlier.
Police units moved.
Evelyn insisted on going as far as the perimeter.
At 11:36 p.m., officers entered through the rear loading doors.
Two minutes passed.
Then three.
A detective’s radio crackled.
“Victim located. Alive.”
Marcus bent forward, hands on his knees.
But the next transmission changed everything.
“Second room cleared. We found documents. Multiple passports. Cash.”
A pause.
“And a photograph wall.”
The detective looked at Evelyn.
“Ms. Cross, your picture is on it.”
Marcus sat on the curb outside the theater ambulance with his son wrapped in a gray blanket. The boy kept saying he was fine, but his hands would not stop shaking. Marcus held those hands between both of his.
“I should’ve picked you up,” Marcus said.
“Dad, stop.”
“I knew something was wrong tonight.”
“You didn’t know they’d take me.”
Marcus looked across the street at Lucas. For a moment the security director who had spent his career protecting powerful people looked completely stripped of rank.
“That kid was ready to trade himself for you,” Marcus said quietly.
His son followed his gaze. “Then make sure nobody lets him.”
Marcus stood, walked across the street, and crouched in front of Lucas.
“I owe you something.”
Lucas frowned. “What?”
May you like
“A promise. Nobody trades you for anybody. Not tonight. Not ever.”
Lucas tried to shrug it off, but his eyes shone. “Okay.”
